Selection of Photos and News Headlines Demonstrate How Valenced Emotion Motives Guide Emotion Regulation

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine whether valenced emotion motives assessed by the General Emotion Regulation Measure (GERM, Bloore et al., 2020) constrain stimulus selection behaviour. We hypothesised that pro-hedonic emotion motives would predict selection of positive stimuli, and contra-hedonic emotion motives would predict selection of negative stimuli. Self-reported GERM-based emotion motives were assessed, yielding continuous scores for trait-based assessments of pro-hedonic and contra-hedonic emotion motives. A sample of 199 university students (149 female, average age = 19.8 years) was asked to select 12 out of a total of 36 valenced descriptive labels (e.g., “cute puppy”) that briefly described corresponding images, and the same for news headlines (e.g., “147 people dead in massacre”). Stimuli were previously rated for valence, and each participant received an average valenced selection score based on which stimuli they chose. A latent variable moderation analysis found that pro-hedonic motives significantly and positively predicted selection of positive stimuli. And second, it showed that contra-hedonic motives significantly and positively predicted selection of negative stimuli, but only if the individual lacked pro-hedonic emotion motives. These findings suggest that valenced general emotion motives play a significant role in what Gross (1998a) described as ‘situation selection’ emotion regulation.